by Bella Jewel
He comes up with a card in his fingers, and quickly pulls it from the envelope and reads it.
I know the flowers aren’t from Jacob when a curse floats down the hall towards me. Ace shoves the card into his pocket and continues to inspect the flowers, moving them aside, sticking his hand into the middle of them, and then finally he picks them up, strides straight past me to the end of the hall, and dumps them in the bins there.
“Ace?” I whisper when he arrives beside me again.
He doesn’t say anything, he just tucks his arm back around my waist and pulls me into him again.
“Ace,” I say again. “What did the card say?”
He keeps his eyes averted straight ahead, but I see the muscle in his jaw jump slightly.
This isn’t good.
“Ace, please,” I whisper.
He exhales, another curse passing his lips, and he looks down at me. “It said ‘Take it easy on that ankle, you’re so incredibly clumsy! Love you, Ray.’”
I make a pained, terrified sound in my throat, and Ace’s fingers squeeze around my waist, reassuring me or just stopping me from falling, I don’t know.
“Oh God, I twisted my ankle once cleaning the house, and Raymond sent me flowers with that exact card.”
God.
How does this person know everything? How?
“It’s okay, Hart,” he murmurs, his voice distracted. “We’ll figure this out.”
Will we though?
“Why is he pretending to be my husband, when I already know it’s not him?”
Ace unlocks my front door with the new key. “Just messing with your head, possibly trying to get you to figure out how he knows all this stuff. It’s all a game.”
“Why me, Ace?”
“I don’t know, but I will figure it out.”
He steps into my apartment and walks me over to the couch, setting me down carefully before turning and striding back to the door, locking it. He glances around for a few minutes, and then disappears down the halls. He’s gone for a few more before he comes back. “There is no one in here.”
I swallow. I really don’t feel so good.
“Your friend Taylor, is she busy tonight?”
I nod. “She’s working.”
“You got any family nearby?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s just me.”
He nods. “Then I’ll be staying again. I’ll bring my work over, I have a lot to do.”
It’s not a question. It’s just a statement.
One I don’t argue with. If he wants to stay, I’m not going to try and stop him. I need someone here, because the uneasiness in my chest is getting heavier and heavier by the second. I don’t want to be alone, and I certainly don’t want to be left to think about the fact that I might be the next victim of a serial killer.
It just doesn’t make sense.
It’s something you read about in books, or see in movies, but it’s not something you actually expect to happen to you. It’s almost unrealistic, like it’s fictional, except I know it isn’t. I can feel it lodged in my chest, a fear that I’m not familiar with. I don’t feel okay, I don’t feel okay at all. So I won’t be telling Ace he can’t stay. He can stay with me every second if it means I’m not left alone.
“We’re going to figure this out.”
My eyes swing to his, and he’s studying me. He must be reading the look of terror on my face, because he’s giving me what is probably the softest expression he’s ever given me.
“What if we don’t?” I say, my voice a little stronger, but still shaky.
“Hartley, we will.”
The thought of what will happen if the killer gets hold of me has a frightened sound rising up and escaping my lips. I press a hand over my mouth to hold it back, but Ace has already heard it and his eyes are focused on me, intense.
“Look at me.”
I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut and holding a hand firmly to my mouth to stop the noises from escaping. A big hand curls around my knee, squeezing.
“Look at me, Hartley.”
I shake my head again.
That hand glides up my to my arm, pulling my hand from my mouth.
“Eyes, this way,” Ace orders, his voice firm but kind.
I let my eyes focus on his, and another frightened mewl leaves my throat.
“I will not let anyone hurt you, do you understand me?”
I take a deep staggering breath. I believe him. I do.
“Do you understand me, Hartley?”
I nod. “I understand.”
“Trust me.”
I do.
I do trust him.
It’ll be okay.
Right?
SEVENTEEN
“These are the facts,” Ace says later that night, as we both sit on my couch eating takeout. I’m calmer now. He has that effect on me. He can calm me, even when I don’t think it’s possible. I think it’s because he never freaks out, he’s always calm and collected. I texted Jacob earlier, just letting him know I’m okay. I feel bad for being so distant. “First, we’re assuming it’s a man, due to the effortless way the women were handled. No woman could do what he did without there being signs of a struggle, not to mention another woman could fight off someone her own size.”
“OK,” I whisper.
Ace goes on. “I’m trying to find a link between the victims, something that helps me define his type. The only thing I know about him right now is that he must study his victims to learn everything about them. Their routine, their family, their friends. Their biggest fears. He likes to weaken them before he takes them, hence the need to torment them, which in all their cases has been the loss of a loved one.”
My chest tightens, but I keep it together. I have to focus. Listen.
“What happens after he takes them?”
Ace’s eyes dart away for a split second, before he looks back at me. “I’m not entirely sure—he had the last one for a little while. She was missing, the officers on the case didn’t put two and two together until it was too late. When they found her, she was killed in a very specific manner. He slit her throat in a bowtie shape, carving into the skin, and then he tied an actual bowtie around her neck, but other than the gruesome manner in which she was murdered, she was seemingly unharmed. She was healthy, had clearly been taken care of.”
Taken care of?
God.
“Which makes me think he mentally torments them, not physically, and then when he’s broken them and had his fun, he kills them.”
Oh. Lord.
“As I said, I’m not sure we’re dealing with the same thing, but some of the things that have happened to you match up to what happened to the last few victims.”
I take a deep breath. I can do this. I’ve got this. “So how do we figure out a connection?”
“We are trying to establish that right now, but at this stage the only connection we can see is that they’ve all lost somebody. I’m assuming that is how he targets his victims. There are no other similarities that we can see. Race, hair color, size—nothing. They’ve all been remarkably different.”
“What about personality traits?” I ask, crossing my legs.
Ace nods. “We’ve looked into that, too. Again, no particular connection.”
“So he’s just what, scouring cemeteries looking for people who’ve lost loved ones? That just seems … too reckless for someone who is obviously thinking in great detail about what he’s doing.”
“Yeah, we’re trying to figure out where he is finding these women.”
I ponder that, and then something flickers into my mind. “What about funeral homes? Perhaps he is getting information from them?”
Ace nods. “It’s possible. It isn’t hard in this day and age to bribe someone out of information, it’s a fairly easy task.”
“Maybe he’s going into the homes and bribing receptionists out of files, and just randomly picking?” I suggest.
“It is something I’ll look into
, but it seems he would be smarter than that, more precise. Any other ideas?”
I think about it.
“Maybe he simply reads death notices in the paper, or follows online groups where people go to support one another? I was on a few online groups, just talking to other people suffering the same as I was. They helped.”
Ace nods again. “Those are both worth looking into, also. Could you get me the names of those online groups?”
“Sure,” I say. “Another suggestion would be to look into support groups.”
Ace studies me. “Ones that aren’t online?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I went to one a year or so after I lost Raymond—I just wasn’t coping or moving forward. It really helped. There were a lot of men and women in those groups.”
“Thank you, it’s all worth looking into.”
I feel a little better knowing I’ve contributed something. Even if they turn out to be dead ends.
I cross my arms, and rub my hands over them for a few seconds before asking, “Why do you think he’s doing it? Targeting people who have lost someone?”
Ace keeps flicking through his notes, not looking up when he answers. “It usually goes back to childhood. Most serial killers follow a pattern, something that happened, something familiar to them. This man at some stage could have possibly lost someone, or maybe he experienced someone close to him changing due to the loss of someone. There will be a connection in there, somehow.”
I nod, rubbing my arms still. “But you don’t know what he actually does with these girls when he gets hold of them, before, he”—I swallow the hard lump in my throat—“kills them?”
Ace gives me a kind look, I’m sure he understands how terrifying it is for me to ask that question. “As far as we know, he doesn’t harm them physically, but instead does damage mentally. When he’s finished, he chokes them and then hangs them from a tree, with a bowtie around their necks.”
A bowtie.
I shudder.
“Why a bowtie?”
Ace shakes his head again. “I’d say it would connect to whatever happened to him to make him this fucking crazy. It’s a trademark—most killers have them.”
“Does he, ah, rape them?”
“No,” Ace says, his voice tight. “There has been no evidence of sexual assault. It’s purely a mental torture. My guess is he holds them until he breaks them, and only when he’s broken them does he kill them.”
I press a hand to my thigh, rubbing frantically. It’s not making me feel any better.
“It may not be the same thing,” Ace tells me, his gaze dropping to the way my hand is frantically rubbing. “We’re going to be talking to the victims’ families tomorrow again, to see if we can get any solid answers.”
“But right now you’re assuming it is, right?”
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
Right.
“We didn’t know these other girls were being tormented because a lot of the time no one really knew about it. It wasn’t until the third victim that we realized that all three had received messages like you have and had been put through the type of things you are going through. Serial killers are next to impossible to pinpoint. We got lucky here, Hartley. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we did. We got lucky because we may have figured it out before he took you.”
“Do you think it’ll deter him if he knows you have figured it out?”
Ace scratches a hand over the stubble on his jaw, before sighing and saying, “Honestly, I don’t know. It’ll either send him packing, or it’ll make it more of a challenge. To have police officers searching everywhere for him, keeping his victim safe, it’s possible that’ll excite him. These people … they don’t think like us.”
Great, so I just became a hot commodity.
“Would you mind if I read about the other cases?” I dare to ask.
Ace studies me. “I’m not supposed to share that kind of thing, it’s against the rules. But I’m going to bend them for you, because I know how I’d feel if I was in your situation. It’s a terrifying thing.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He hands me three files. I hold them in my hands, and then, with a deep sigh, I read.
* * *
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” I say to the man sitting on my sofa, hands in his lap. “It’s just that right now I’m going through a really hard time, and I thought I might be ready for a relationship but after everything that’s going on, I’m not. I really like you, and you’ve been so supportive, but I don’t think I’m ready to take the next step.”
Jacob’s eyes hold mine, and I know I’ve upset him. I hate that I had to do that, but unfortunately my feelings for him aren’t developing. I like him a lot. He’s a great guy, one of the best, but he isn’t the guy for me. I know that. Time isn’t going to change that. I’m not the kind of girl to lead someone on in hopes I might develop something for him down the line. I’d never do that.
“I understand,” Jacob says, his voice a little sad. “I wouldn’t want you to enter into anything you’re not ready for. I really like you, Hartley, but I won’t force you to do this with me.”
My heart hurts for him.
“I’m really sorry. I wish it could be different, but it just isn’t right now.”
Jacob stands with a nod. “We were mostly friends anyway, please don’t concern yourself over it. I’m just happy to have met you.”
“Can we stay friends, then?”
He smiles. “Of course we can. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
I beam at him, and step forward for a hug when he comes in for one. “I’ll call you soon, see how you’re doing,” he says, letting me go.
“That would be great, and I really am sorry.”
He winks at me. “Don’t be. Talk to you soon.”
He leaves my apartment, and I lock the doors behind him. Only ten minutes later a knock sounds out. Narrowing my eyes, I rush over and call out, “Who is it?”
“Ah, it’s Greg Jefferson.”
Greg?
Should I open the door?
My gut twists. How did he find my apartment? How does he even know where to look? My skin prickles and I pull out my phone, preparing to dial Ace. “I’m sorry, I’m not opening the door,” I say, double-checking the lock is fully in place.
“I’m not here to bother you…”
“How did you find my address?”
“I,” he hesitates. “It isn’t hard to find someone’s address. I just want to talk, I promise I’m not here to make a scene.”
It isn’t hard to find someone’s address?
What the hell?! Who just shows up to someone’s apartment randomly?
“Please leave, I’m calling the police.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about,” he calls through the door. “They’ve called me in for an interview and I wondered why. They said it was in regards to you. What have you said about me?”
I’m uneasy. He might be telling the truth, he might have absolutely nothing to do with what’s been going on, but the fact of the matter is that he’s gone to the effort of finding out where I live, and coming over here. That doesn’t sit right with me, and because of that, my uneasiness continues to grow.
“You need to leave. Police business is police business.”
“I’d like to know what you’re running around saying,” he says, his voice a little harder than I’m comfortable with.
“I’m calling the police…” I say back.
“I don’t know why you’re creating trouble for me, but I won’t have it…”
“Dialing right now!” I yell.
“I’m leaving,” he snaps. “Be careful what stories you’re spinning. I’d hate to get into trouble for something I didn’t do.”
I don’t like this. At all.
I dial Ace once, but it goes to voicemail so I leave a quick message. “Ace, Greg came by my apartment and I didn’t like how he was behaving. Can you call me?”
“Yeah
, call the cops,” Greg shouts. “Waste of my time, you were. If I get into trouble for something I haven’t done, you’ll pay.”
I don’t say anything more, I just wait, listening. I hear the door to the stairs slam, and only then do I unlock the door and peek outside. He’s gone. My heart is racing. That wasn’t normal. Not at all. The fact that he found my address makes me extremely uneasy.
I lock the door again, and wait for Ace to return my call. When he does, I inform him about Greg and he tells me he’s moving the questioning forward—after he spent ten minutes demanding to know everything he said and dropping a few choice curse words at the audacity of Greg. Midway through our call, Taylor turns up, so I hang up with Ace, grateful my best friend is here right now. My heart is still racing from the encounter.
When Taylor skips in with two coffees and some muffins, it eases a little. I’ve been so busy with everything happening, I’ve hardly had the chance to talk to her. I haven’t told her about Ace’s suspicions yet, because he told me to keep it to myself as much as possible.
But she’s my best friend.
I know I can trust her.
And I really need someone to talk to right now.
“Hey.” I smile. “Gosh, I’m happy to see you.”
“How is everything?” she asks, setting the coffees down.
“Greg just showed up.”
She jerks and looks at me. “What? Why? How did he find your address?”
“I don’t know, but he was going on about me getting him into trouble with the police. I told Ace, but I’m still really creeped out.”
“Do you think he’s behind this?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but it’s all getting out of hand. It’s been a crappy few days. I had to end it with Jacob today, too.”
She spins around, giving me a look. “Why?”
I shrug. “Honestly, he was a really nice guy, but he just wasn’t the guy for me. He was,—gosh, I’m going to sound like a terrible person for saying this—but he was just too nice. Don’t get me wrong, I like nice, but … he just wasn’t sparking anything inside me. At all.”
She rolls her eyes. “You can’t force chemistry.”